At the start of 2016, the numbers suggest it really is the turn of the Indian tortoise to race ahead. With annual gross domestic product growth of 7.4 per cent in the third quarter, India is expanding faster than China or any large economy and is sparkling when compared with recession-hit emerging markets such as Brazil.

2016年初，数据表明这次真的轮到“印度龟”跑在最前面了。印度去年第三季度国内生产总值(GDP)同比增长7.4%，超过了中国或其他任何大型经济体的增速，和巴西等陷入衰退的新兴市场国家相比更是熠熠生辉。

TN Ninan is, however, more of a stolid realist than a nationalistic cheerleader for India or for Narendra Modi, its prime minister.

然而，比起为印度或者印度总理纳伦德拉•莫迪(Narendra Modi)摇旗呐喊的民族主义者，T•N•尼南(TN Ninan)更多是一个冷静的现实主义者。

Ninan, chairman and former editor of the Business Standard newspaper, implies in this survey of India’s economy since the 1991 reforms that its moment of glory comes almost by default. While others have fallen by the wayside, India plods and stumbles onwards, propelled by the sheer size of a domestic market of 1.3bn people and the need to catch up with nimbler rivals. “India is the world’s last great business frontier,” he writes.

作为印度《商业标准报》(Business Standard)的董事长和前主编，尼南在这项对印度1991年改革后的经济情况的调查中暗示，印度的荣耀时刻几乎是在对手缺席的情况下到来的。在其他国家失败的时候，印度凭借13亿人口的庞大国内市场，在追赶更灵活的对手的需求推动下，跌跌撞撞地艰难前行。“印度是世界上最后一块大的商业待开发地，”他写道。

India, as Ninan says, is compared unfavourably with China and other Asian successes to the east rather than with struggling African economies to the west. And India is a nuclear power that has sent a satellite to Mars. But, yes, India’s transport infrastructure is bad; governments have crippled industry over the years with laughably counterproductive policies (including penalising large companies and so ensuring that China took charge of every internationally traded sector from garments to white goods); basic state education and healthcare are shockingly poor; and corrupt politicians and obstructive bureaucrats are many and powerful.

就如尼南所说，与东边的中国和其他取得成功的亚洲国家相比，印度显得逊色，但是和其西边苦苦挣扎的非洲经济体相比，印度还是比下有余的。印度是一个核国家，还将卫星送上了火星。然而，是的，印度的交通基础设施很糟糕；多年来印度政府可笑的政策（包括处罚大型企业，从而确保中国掌控了从制衣到白色家电的每一个国际贸易行业）适得其反，严重损害了工业；基本国家教育和医疗贫乏得令人震惊；腐败的政客和妨碍发展的官僚为数众多，手握大权。

“Put it all together, and the system is manifestly dysfunctional,” says Ninan, noting that in 2014 India’s average per capita income was lower than those of Laos, Zambia and Sudan.

“把这些结合在一起看，印度的整个系统就显得明显功能失调了，”尼南说，指出印度2014年的人均收入还不及老挝、赞比亚和苏丹。

The two big Indian failures he identifies are in government (which can be fixed, albeit with difficulty) and in manufacturing (which can also be fixed, but not in a way that will recreate the mass employment of industrial revolutions before the robotic age).

他界定了印度的两大失败，分别是政府（尽管存在困难，但这个问题可以修正）和制造业（这个问题也可以修正，但即使修正也无法在机器人时代之前重新创造工业革命那样的大规模就业）。

Successive Indian governments are blamed, among other things, for focusing on tertiary rather than basic education, for creating an unwieldy welfare state (among the handouts in Tamil Nadu are rice, food mixers, goats, laptops, free electricity for weavers and cash and gold for those getting married), and for slow justice and bad labour laws.

历届印度政府应该为许多事而受到指责，尤其是：专注于高等教育而非基础教育；打造了一个运转不灵的福利国家（政府在泰米尔纳德邦(Tamil Nadu)发放的救济品包括大米、食品搅拌机、山羊、笔记本电脑、为织工提供的免费电力、为将要结婚的人提供的现金和黄金）；司法程序缓慢，劳动法糟糕。

Officially there are 30m Indians in formal employment, just 6 per cent of the total workforce, and most of them are state employees — although the statistics are contradicted by other data. India is indeed what Harvard professor Lant Pritchett called a “flailing state”, with officials unable to implement even the sensible policies handed down from the top.

根据官方数据，有3000万印度人受到正式雇佣，仅占总劳动人口的6%，其中大多数是国家雇员——尽管这些统计和其他数据相矛盾。哈佛大学(Harvard University)教授兰特•普里切特(Lant Pritchett)将印度称为一个“头脑指挥不了四肢的国家”是恰如其分的，哪怕上层下达的政策是明智的，印度官员也无法执行。

In manufacturing, Mr Modi has launched a “Make in India” programme to attract investment and integrate the country’s factories into global supply chains dominated by east Asia. In theory, wages are attractively low for investors, but Mr Modi is faced with an awful legacy.

在制造业，莫迪启动了“印度制造”计划以吸引投资，以及让本国工厂融入由东亚主导的全球供应链。理论上，对投资者而言印度的低薪资水平很有吸引力，但莫迪面临着可怕的历史遗留问题。

India finally freed product markets in the 1990s from the Kafkaesque rules that had governed them, but has proved unable to liberalise the key factors of production — labour and land.

上世纪90年代，印度最终将产品市场从之前统治它的卡夫卡式规则中解放出来，但事实证明印度无法解放关键的生产因素——劳动者和土地。

“Indeed,” writes Ninan, “most producers looking for alternatives to China are not looking at India. Its rigid labour laws remain a handicap, its workers are not always as productive, the infrastructure is deficient, and dealing with the authorities is a nightmare. Almost all countries in east Asia offer easier working environments.” Ouch.

“的确，”尼南写道，“大多数寻求中国的替代品的生产商并没有把眼光投向印度。印度僵硬的劳动法始终是个障碍，印度的劳动者也并非总是具有同等的生产率，基础设施不足，和印度当局打交道更是噩梦。几乎所有东亚国家都能提供更便利的工作环境。”真糟糕。

Ninan lays out three “mega trends” that will shape India’s future: a surge in the size of the middle class; the continued but unwilling retreat of the state from the economy (43 per cent of schoolchildren go to private schools); and a shift in political power from New Delhi to state capitals.

尼南列举了将塑造印度未来的三个“大趋势”：中产阶层数量激增；国家从经济中不情愿但持续地撤退（43%的学龄儿童现在到私立学校就学）；政治权力从新德里向邦首府转移。

He laments the lack of any constituency among politicians for free markets or radical reform. The best he can say — echoing Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech at independence in 1947 — is that life for Indians will improve at an acceptable speed “not wholly, but very substantially”. For the time being, the Indian tortoise is moving faster up the track than its rivals. But it is a long way from the finish line, and it is still a tortoise.

尼南对政治人士中缺乏支持自由市场或者激进改革的人感到失望。他能够说出的最好评价呼应了贾瓦哈拉尔•尼赫鲁(Jawaharlal Nehru)在1947年发表的独立演讲——印度人的生活将以可接受的速度“不完全、但实实在在地”改善。目前，印度龟在跑道上比对手移动得更快。但现在离终点线还很远，而印度仍只是一只乌龟。